A well-known principle of communicating data between different electronic devices is a so-called “point-to-point” connection, as for example described by the IEEE 1394 Standard. According to this standard, and also for other logical buses, the data is repeated by each node from the incoming cable segment to the outgoing cable segments. The incoming data is synchronized and retimed by use of a local crystal oscillator present in each of the respective nodes. In order to achieve high data integrity, the data propagating through the network from node to node must be synchronized. The synchronization is performed at the beginning of each data packet. After synchronization, the bits are sampled in the middle of their pulses. However, two network nodes never have exactly the same oscillator frequency, so that the position in time at which the bits are sampled shifts either to the beginning or to the end of each data bit. The longer a data packet is, the further away from the center a bit is sampled, which is at the end of the packet. In order to guarantee data integrity, a specific maximum tolerance of the oscillation frequency of the local oscillator is defined. For example, for the IEEE 1394 Standard, the crystal oscillator tolerance should be less than +/−100 ppm. Accordingly, the maximum difference between two nodes can be 200 ppm. In other words, for a bit length of 2500 bits can be sampled without leaving the tolerance range, i.e. without introducing an error, including a margin of ½ bit. This corresponds to a data packet of 312 bytes, which can be transmitted without an error. In order to transmit larger packets, an internal retiming circuit is used that allows larger packets to be sent and received without an error. However, if the local oscillators in the network nodes vary in their frequency by more than 100 ppm, only reduced data packet sizes can be used. Tolerances of the oscillation frequencies of the local oscillators can vary widely due to aging or temperature effects. Also, local oscillators having very stable oscillation frequencies are expensive and complex. In order to handle aging or temperature effects, protection circuits are used, which compare the exact bit rate from the incoming packets with the exact bit rate of the outgoing data packets. Yet, new applications and standards for point-to-point networks have to support different speeds and they have to be idle when no data is transmitted, so that a comparison of the data bit rates is impractical.